February 2002 Archives

I spent part of the morning doing research. The end result - I've have a dozen books from the library, on business simulations. That should keep me busy for the rest of the week.

The new PhD co-ordinator, Erling called a meeting to find out what we (the PhD cohort) wanted to do during this year. It seems that there will be three main programs.

• A series of writing retreats - the last one was so good, this was first on our list
• A series of workshops covering things like EndNote. I might be roped into delivering that one in particular.
• PhD seminars/get-togethers/social event, every six weeks or so.
• Presenting seminars by the PhD cohort to the department (for friendly feedback)

I really like the sound of the program - there is certainly a lot being done for us.

Had a mad rush over to the Takapuna/North Shore campus. It's pandemonium as the builders try and finish things for the new semester next Monday.

Anyway, they have more or less finished extending my office, so I spent several hours getting everything back into place, sorting out furniture and books, getting rid of the dust. Well, its done now. I only hope it isn't necessary for them to fit in another person - that will be a squeeze.

Of course, there is only a room shortage until the new offices are built on the third floor. Who knows when that will happen. I guess it depends on when the existing tenants leave.

We went to the Cock and Bull for a traditional Sunday roast today. It was yummy. I was a little surprised how empty the pub was. But then again there are a few things on in town today, such as the cricket.

The implications of loosing all the data in my Palm pilot are just sinking in. The only address book I ever had was a little red one, that I got when I left school. Many years ago (about 10), I transferred all the names and address that I had in that address book to some software from Time Manager International. That information (plus some) was moved to Outlook, and then eventually to my Palm pilot. I kept backups for ages, but a series of events (starting with the upgrade of this machine, has led to the total loss of everything ... Oy, vey!

Well despite the Palm problems of yesterday, I do seem to be making some good progress on my PhD proposal. I seem to have a research questions; and I think I know the method I will use. They are a little rough around the edge yet - but I hope to have something pretty concrete by the end of next week

Had a lovel breakfast at Corsa in Mt. Eden. The coffee was superb and the eggs Benedict was lovely. They use some wonderful honey cured bacon instead of ham. Yum.

Picked a couple of videos from Videon. They are with out doubt the best video store in town. Watched Enemy at the Gates. A solid ironing movie (something good enough to watch whilst ironing, but it doesn't require all of one's attention).

I was supposed to meet with Pete Mazany first thing this morning to talk about my PhD. Alas, I think we both ran out of time and had to abandon it.

Went to a great seminar by Kavin Scholes of Johnson and Scholes - Exploring corporate strategy fame. It is nice to meet someone who is so passionate about their teaching. He is also a great story-teller.

Had a chat with Biljana in marketing about Mike's Bikes. It was good to talk about a subject that really interests us both.

I've noticed that that the battery in my old Palm Pilot is pretty low. In fact I really should et around to backing it up. Alas, when I upgraded to Windows XP I found the the Palm desktop software would no longer install and work correctly. Having said that, a search of the Palm site indicates that an updated desktop (4.10) is available. I'll have to try that later.

Added a couple of more tools on the footer. Now it is possible to view the page in a format that is more printer friendly. It is also possible to view the source code for any particular page - just click on the ? (if you can see it). All I need to do now is to get the email working ...

At last I've managed to set up everything so I can update this remotely. It's amazing what technology can do.

Oy Vey. Well I installed the new Pilot desktop when I got home to night. Alas, my little Pilot well and truly crashed during the Hot Sink. Even resetting it wouldn't work. So, I took the option to clear the data. So, I have a working, but very empty Palm Pilot.

Oh, and I didn't have a back up. Doh!

So, at last, I have a working web log. Most of the code to get this working came from Frogware.

I also, found a lot of interesting things at Babu's site. I think I'll have a go at using his IE Editor for Zope to make editing this a little easier.

Getting the search engine to work is a little problematical. The How To is rather out of date. Perhaps I should be looking in the :Zope Book":http://web.archive.org/web/20020831032838/http://www.zope.org/Members/michel/ZB.

Well, the book did help. But, I still needed to hunt around the Zope site for more information. But it all seems to be working now.

We had our departmental lunch today. Very nice. The usual people turned out.

This evening Lisa and I went to see The man who wasn't there. A film-noir, filmed in black and white. Frances McDormand and Billy Bob Thornton were as good as ever.

I've just been playing with HTML-Kit. It's a general purpose HTML editor, which also understands FTP. So, it should, and is possible to edit content on the Zserver. Yippee!

I spent quite a bit of time today setting up the site.

Of course, not knowing much about Zope slowed me down a bit.

Nevertheless, it is working. I've used a bit of code for the LUF Content Management System. No doubt, _regebro+, who wrote LUF, will also recognise the style of the site too.